Childress press conf. transcript - 12/13

(On if he worked on sliding yesterday with Brandon Weeden)- “It seems like he should slide better having been part of Major League Baseball. I’m told it’s because he played for American League teams (jokingly).”

(On how impressed he’s been with Robert Griffin III)- “I don’t know how you could not help but be impressed. I’m impressed by the things that they do on offense. (They) haven’t changed some of the stuff he did in college, and that it can be effective on this level. I think everybody probably poo-pooed that to start with. You see it ripping people up on Sundays.”

(On if the running quarterback is an option here)- “You have to have a gifted guy to run it I think, first of all. It’s just a matter of how long you want to play it until they draw a bead up on him and get a good shot on him.”

(On how much untapped potential he thinks he’ll see the last three games)- “You’re probably talking about a yearly thing. I don’t know how much more in three games, hopefully enough to win three games. I would think getting into the play book you probably start to do some things as you get into the next year and the next year, with the young people that are in there.”

(On if he likes the group that he has)- “I like the guys, and that’s taking that they’re going to progress and that they are going to grow both in the offseason and through the preseason next year. I like the base with which we’re building.”

(On if he has the confidence the young guys can handle more)- “Some things, but really kind of subtle changes. I think they are doing the things that we are asking them to do at a decent level. Can they do it at a higher level? Sure they can, because a perfect game has never been played. We’re just asking them to interpret things along those lines that are in those playbooks. We’re giving them the latitude, or at least they are taking the latitude now to go ahead and create along those lines. I think that’s where you make your most growth as you go.”

(On Alex Mack and where he is with other centers in the NFL)- “I don’t know if I’m capable of doing that because first of all, I always look at the defensive side. I do see centers play obviously somebody’s playing against those defenses. I don’t know if I’ve seen them all. I don’t know if I’ve seen all the NFC ones. I can just speak to Alex. Obviously, he’s an extremely smart, really competitive, not just with the guy over him but competitive to make the right calls. He’s the kind of quarterback of that offensive line. I just think he’s outstanding that way. He plays with good leverage for being a bigger guy. He bends well. He’s able to use his leverage and he continues to get better and better. I don’t know how many are better than him, but I wouldn’t say there are a lot of them better than him.”

(On if Trent Richardson is more injured than he’s letting on and why he doesn’t have more explosive runs)- “That’s a good question. First of all, you’d have to ask Trent that. I know he’s sure sore come Wednesday. I don’t know if that’s additional soreness in that spot that has been bothering him. I think that’s one of those things that probably won’t completely go away until the offseason. Just us doing a better of blocking those things, I don’t think that’s through any fault of his own that there aren’t those explosions. I know the question always is, ‘How come when Montario (Hardesty) comes in, he can run for 20 yards?’ Some of it’s just, he’s taking the third series and all of a sudden he is going with it. We happen to call a play that we block well enough for him to run 20 or 25 yards. I don’t know if you can put your finger on any one thing, how come there’s not? I just think, they are there, they are just underneath the surface, and we can’t quite get him there right now.”

(On if he doesn’t think it’s how Richardson is playing)- “No, I don’t think it has anything to do with Trent, it has more to do with us blocking.”

(On Richardson’s yards per carry being down against Kansas City)- “He was effective. The 2.7 yards per carry, I don’t look at it that much. You look at it I guess in the grand scheme of things when you go back and say, ‘hey there’s a guy averaging an Adrian Peterson like 6.5 yards a carry.’ I just think there are things we can do better offensively that would allow him. Can he do some things better? Sure he can, but that’s everybody on offense.”

(On the offensive line being more physical than last year)- “I wouldn’t hasten to compare them to last year’s crowd or the year before or anything like that. I think the thing with the offensive line is, it all starts up front. On offense and defense it all starts up front. I recognize that, even though the quarterback coach and offensive coordinator, it all starts up front. You don’t do anything unless those guys are exerting their will on somebody else in front of them. They know I feel that way. I think they are doing a better job of exerting their will, because that’s what it really comes down to. Obviously, a defensive lineman is going to try to exert his will against you. I think that’s probably the highest form of flattery when you say, ‘Hey it’s a physical offensive line.’ They are getting there. They are not all there yet, but they are getting there.”

(On if the creative plays against Kansas City were the evolution of the offense)- “We’ve had I think, for example, the double reverse we ran against Philadelphia the first game. You kind of have to put those things, Tony (Grossi) in mothballs. After you run it in the Philadelphia game, you can’t really trot it back out again the next week. You’re giving people credit for coaching on that side too that they might try to take something like that away. We drag that out about every third or fourth game. The wildcat stuff, Josh (Cribbs) did a good job with that on a couple of carries. He ran the same play twice, and took a better look at it the second time. Some of his God-given athletic ability was able to make a safety miss. I don’t know that it’s all of a sudden we’re turning to page 4000 in the playbook. Those things have been in there and been practiced for most of training camp, at least the double reverse has. The Cribbs piece was just something that we felt like.”

(On the Greg Little run)- “Just from the fact that he had been a running back in high school. They did that last year once or twice with him. It seemed like we could handle it. We could line up in the formation, get to where we needed to do, have the people that were blocking it block it the right way and have Greg be able to carry it out. Its genesis was last year.”

(On if it was a four wide formation)- “I don’t know if it was out of a four wide. It could have been out of a three wide and a tight end, but I know that there were three wides in last year when they played.”

(On how risky RGIII running the ball is)- “I don’t know. Would you have said that about a Donovan McNabb or a Daunte Culpepper? You say, “Well those are bigger frames.’ I know, but I just think it’s part of his piece. When you have an RGIII, you’re not going to try to coach that out of him, make him stand still and kind of stand like an iron deer on a lawn. He’s not going to do that. He has a different skill set. You want him to accentuate that.”

(On what he likes about Hardesty)- “I like the fact that he’s been able to come in and explode and just give us a different pace. They have a couple different backs at the Redskins that are able to change up. I’ve talked to you guys before about changes of pace. It’s nice to have two different kinds of backs, because the defense kind of sets its cleats in the ground for one style run. Then somebody else comes in, and all of a sudden it’s a little different style running. Montario’s been able to have some explosive plays and give us production. Not ridiculous production, but enough production where you’re not afraid to say give him the next series.”

(On Hardesty having a higher yard per carry than Richardson if they will add Hardesty in more)- “We’re not there, certainly we’re not there. Are we going to give him a series every now and then or every third series or something to that nature? Yeah, we talk about that. All those guys are competitive guys. When you produce, it’s funny how coaches find different ways for you to get touches on the football. I know that’s a double edge sword. ‘Yeah, how can I produce if I’m sitting here behind a guy, and you never let me on the field? Those guys are aware of that. I’m pleased that Montario’s having some success. I know what I wanted to say was, I’m told that he’s as healthy as he has ever been in the time that he has been here. Then again, (that) let’s your God-given athletic abilities come to the surface.”

(On if he wonders if Hardesty will hold on to the ball in a key play)- “It was in my mind after it happened. It scarred me as a matter of fact. That was Pat’s (Shurmur) call to take him out and his apology. Montario would be the first to tell you, ‘I’m not real high on putting the ball on the ground, particularly going in’, if in fact that happened. All I know is I saw bean bags and saw a ball out. It scarred me.”

(On what stands out about the Redskins run defense)- “I just think Redskins defense overall, where we faced a Kansas City team last week that was bigger and stouter. I think they were higher against the run, if I’m not mistaken, than the Redskins. You’re seeing a lot of blitzing going on. You are seeing a lot of run blitzing as well as pass blitzing going on, whereas Kansas City did very little of that. This is really a live by the sword, die by the sword. They are coming after you coming off the bus. We’ll have to be way differently ready than we were last week for Kansas City’s defense.”

(On his impressions of London Fletcher)- “Just that he has been around forever, he’s like a dinosaur. I think I can remember competing against him on three different teams, back when he had three different names on the back of his jersey. It’s amazing that a guy playing that position could still be as effective as he is. You can see his passion for the game. He truly is their quarterback on that side of the ball. You see him get people lined up, still playing at a high, high level.”

(On if he meant that he had been with three teams or Fletcher had been)- “I guess I have too. What goes around comes around. The same people, if you pass each other the same way going up as you do going down.”

(On if he would want to be a head coach again)- “If the timing is right, if the people are right, that’d be great. If not, I can say that I’ve been there, done that.”

(On what it takes out of the offense when Hardesty drops the pass)- “I can’t remember how that series ended specifically where he dropped the football, because that was going to be a big gain. I think we had a big gain right before that, and we were going to go right there with another big gain. We may have gone down and scored, I can’t remember. Dropped balls hurt you. You can’t selectively say, we’re going to put a guy in, and he’s only going to go in on a run situation where we hand him the football. If he’s playing the series, he’s probably going to play run and pass. You have to take what you get when Montario’s in there. Does he need to catch the ball? He needs to catch the ball, yeah. Those are drive stoppers when you drop the ball and you’re standing in frank air.”

(On the development of Josh Gordon)- “It’s probably nothing short of astounding that a guy can one day be not committed to the draft, next day jump in the draft and the next month be in an NFL camp where he missed all the spring time. You know he’s going to be as raw as he can be. That he’s able to get in shape to where he can compete at this level and then to be able to go on and do what he’s done, it’s a great story. You know what? It’s all kudos to him, because he’s the guy that has had to put in the work. That’s where the rubber meets the road. He’s put that time in, in both the classroom, and the weight room and the training area to where he’s a highly functioning piece of this offense.”

(On if he sees Randy Moss in Gordon)- “Stature maybe. I think Randy’s probably taller. I’m reticent to put any kind of, Josh Gordon is Josh Gordon. He’s got kind of his own individual style. I really wouldn’t compare him to anybody else, at least right now. It’s too early.”

(On Shurmur saying his biggest regret from 2011 was not hiring an offensive coordinator right away and what was his situation at that time)- “I talk with Pat and he wasn’t ready to hire an offensive coordinator. I think he was going to do it himself. I’m not sure what the other conversations were around here. What went on with me was I gained about 30 pounds and drank a lot of flowery drinks with straws in them and wore a big hat.”

(On holding on to the ball against Washington’s defense)- “I would say this, you’d better not hold onto the ball very long against these guys. They’ll take you to task in a hurry. All that kind of stuff that we’ve done offensively, there’s got to be an element of the quick passing game. There’s got to be an element of the crossing game that you see from us every week. I’d just say nothing good’s going to happen in this game with the quarterback holding onto the football, because they are going to storm the castle.”

(On if he’s amazed by what Adrian Peterson is doing)- “He’s an absolute freak and I say that in a good way. He was something from the first time I saw him take a handoff from the little guy from East Stroudsburg State. We called him Joey Proton, or whatever his name was. In a walk through kind of setting with no pads on, where we invited 50 guys from all over the United States to come and watch him hand the football off and watch him go around the corner the first time I saw him was kind of jaw dropping. He’s still jaw dropping when I see the highlights that I see. I just go, ‘Whoa, Adrian.’ He’s got God-given, natural athletic ability obviously. You won’t find a guy that works harder. Obviously, he’s put himself in a great position to be able to come back off of a devastating knee injury at this point in time.”